Rush to diagnose ADHD and autism can damage children: As rates soar up to 40-fold, a major review warns of the toll on those wrongly given a label

[Rubydobydo]

Britain risks harming a generation of children by over-diagnosing ADHD and autism, a major review warns today.
Parents are incentivised to have their children diagnosed by misguided schools and welfare systems that reward such 'labels', the report found.
Youngsters have also been influenced by social media posts that wrongly present common traits as evidence of the conditions.
https://www.dailymail.com/health/article-16194777/Rush-diagnose-ADHD-autism-damage-children.html

Discuss?

In my opinion delays in diagnosis are damaging children since the diagnosis is often a gateway to getting support (shouldn't be but often is).

There is an “explosion of diagnoses” because these conditions were so extremely underdiagnosed previously. Do you have a similar reaction to better diagnosis of other medical conditions? For example, now that we are far better at diagnosing cancer and think that means we should do fewer diagnostic tests to bring the numbers down?

But it isn’t, is it? So many complaints about the right support NOT being provided, and even where it is, I’m yet to see a ‘success story’ where that support is actually effective. All I read about are young people in chronic ‘burnout’ who will likely never really be independent despite their £££ on ‘support’

Exactly. See my first post on the thread: we know why. The researchers deliberately ignored the well-evidenced explanations in copious, statistically validated research.

Did they? Or did they just draw a different conclusion?

It’s called long term planning! If as the Lancet says, 3 - 5 percent of the population has ADHD, then the government should have planned accordingly.

They ought to say to themselves - we know statistically that x percent of the population are going to have learning disabilities, autism, ADHD, developmental language disorder, visual impairment, hearing impairment, etc, and within those groups, y percent are going to need support in education, and if necessary social support in adult life! We need to plan accordingly - build and staff the special schools; and supported living/care homes for adults! Not leave it to capitalism to create a fragmented marketplace for profit for private investors!

Quite. And not having access to appropriate educational environments and therefore developing significant mental health problems and not learning to their potential during crucial developmental years. It’s unclear how the authors think failing to diagnose them and therefore a lack of individual, highly specific medical reports on the support the child requires, or the Government’s one size fits all generic approach to so-called support by “categorising” children whose needs may vary significantly, is supposed to “help” the situation. Idiotic in the extreme and all about cutting costs to the NHS, schools and LAs, not helping children. They must think we’re all stupid with this doublespeak and pretence that any of this is for children’s benefit.

There's another thread for SEN TAs where teachers are talking about 50% of their students in their mainstream classes having a SEN diagnosis. Yes there have always been undiagnosed neurodiverse kids, but nowhere near at this level, and finding out what's causing it should be the govt's absolute priority.

I have a friend whose child was diagnosed at 4 who admittedly didn't get the right support in secondary school to start with but did eventually and achieved her GCSEs in a specialist setting and then went on to mainstream college. My own DD has received the support she needed partly because we paid for it but she does now have an EHCP. Another teenager we know is undiagnosed, likely to age out of the 3 year Autism waiting list before she reaches the top and school went down the fines route so that parent felt they had to deregister the child. No EHCP, now not in education and won't be getting any GCSEs. So based on my personal experience, there is some support out there but it's a lottery who gets it or not and prompt diagnosis helps.

I don’t know how old these children are now, but I thought the PP is referring to the success rates by the time the children are young adults and should be working, living independently.
I may be wrong but i understood that’s what she was meaning in terms of the support hadn’t really helped

Why is it rude? They were simply saying they agree with the poster they quoted. It happens all the time on this site.

Why do you get to dictate to them what they should or shouldn’t put on their post. That is for them to decide. You can choose to scroll past if you don’t like it. At least they contributed to the discussion put forward by the OP - you didn’t even address the question being asked!

My 16 year old is currently being assessed for adhd by cahms after being referred by a private counsellor who she was seeing for anxiety. The psychiatrist in cahms on our first appointment made it clear that she was aware of tiktok/social media influencing young people and she would be looking out for signs that that was what was behind dds presence there. I think it's silly to think that qualified psychiatrists don't know their jobs.

Dd has never been 'rewarded' for struggling. She finds her lack of attention span, forgetfulness etc quite distressing. She really wants to do well at school, move onto university and become and architect.

My DC are in 18-24 group of increase - as I myself was with dsyslexia and dyspraxia previous generation.

There were many early signs often pointed out by their teachers - but getting near testing or support beyond us was bloody impossible.

Not just us DD1 friend privatedly diagonsed in end with ADHD and ASD at a cost of thousands sat on lists for years - her younger brother doing same but now after so long they take them off and when queirried they go back on at back of list.

I think ND kids are the canaries in the coal mine many used to managed and now in schools as they are they can't - so I think that's adding to the numbers diagonsed.

Most of DC friends many of who are ND are working or are in full time education - older generations increasing being disognosed are also working and educated so not sure I agree it's why there as so many NEETS.

Yes, these are late teenagers, my point was that the two who are diagnosed and are receiving support and remaining in education are much more likely to go on to succeed as young adults.

I think we’re in the middle of a huge pendulum swing as our understanding of neurodiversity increases so yes maybe it does feel like we’re over diagnosing at the moment as our awareness and understanding increased. I’ve heard it say a few times that our understanding of ADHD is currently akin to when doctors were treating physical ailments with leeches so there is still a lot we don’t know.

This next is just what I think based on my own work so not rooted in academic research or anything, but I think over the next decade or so we’ll come to understand adhd as an umbrella term to describe a set of behaviours with a range of different origins (early trauma, genetics, early exposure to substance abuse etc).

It’s a fairly controversial/unpopular theory here but is gaining more traction in Eastern Europe but I also think we’ll have a better picture in a decade or so about the impact of processed food, screen time and microplastics are having on the brain. Again just my opinion but I personally think screen time is a double edged sword as it really helps children to regulate also killing attention span in the long run and possibly reducing resilience too.

I also believe that we create this artificial situation of young children sitting in seats under fluorescent lights with minimal chance for movement then complain when we realise they don’t all fit that mold. Children need regular movement and hands on experience of things to thrive. Most schools do t even have an afternoon break past ks2 now then end up having to send restless kids on movement breaks.

I feel like I’m on such a rant now that I’ve lost track of the original question but it’s such an interesting topic and a lot of it is very tricky to unpick because a child raised by parents with undiagnosed adhd is fairly likely to also have adhd, but how do you unpick whether it’s genetic or whether it’s from living in a chaotic home.

Again I think it’s a good thing that more people with adhd are receiving support although very very recently I’ve heard people being told essentially yes you have it but you’re managing so there’s no point giving you a diagnosis - basically if you can mask enough to hold down a job, but equally I don’t think we should lose sight of the fact that the human personality is a huge spectrum. I really don’t like the ‘5 signs you have adhd’ videos you see on TikTok because a lot of them describe perfectly normal behaviours (and also describe perimenopause very well too) and don’t help people in the long run I don’t think.

My final point is that there’s a lot of crap spouted as a fact ( remember people saying that adhd meds had an opposite effect if taken by someone who didn’t act have adhd) and the one thing I’ve noticed through my work is that the higher up someone is in the field, the more they acknowledge they don’t know enough about it yet and that we’re still learning. The people I come across who know for certain what causes it or know for certain that a healthy breakfast and a good bit of discipline will cure it are generally the least knowledgeable about it.

Diagnosis of label aside, I’d like to see research into WHY there is such an increase in kids and young people struggling and needing support.
But WHY are there so many kids in need of ‘support’? Surely you can see if the need for support increases 40 fold that’s not something they can just provide immediately?

Looking at SEN rather than ASD/ADHD specifically, there hasn’t been such a big increase in the percentage of DC with SEN as some people like to suggest. The most recent statistics released this year show 20.8% of pupils have SEN. In 2010, it was 20.9% or 21.1% (depending on which statistics you look at - I think it is a rounding issue adding up SA, SA+ and SSEN). In 2005, it was 18%. Going back several decades to the Warnock report in 1978, “some 20% appeared to need some form of special educational help. This may even be an underestimate…”

I’m yet to see a ‘success story’ where that support is actually effective

There are ‘success stories’. Including written on MN.

Yes, these are late teenagers, my point was that the two who are diagnosed and are receiving support and remaining in education are much more likely to go on to succeed as young adults.

Tracks with what I've seen.

Most of kids privatly diagonsed after years of waiting on NHS lists tends to start when they are in danger of not managing in school - when things are really unreavling usually after years of asking for support or accomodation.

Often the diagnosis it's the difference between managing to stay in school and get exams - often very good ones - and not.

I have read that private schools tend to have higher diagnosis rates - but I do not know we are the failing state end in my area so perhaps there is so gaming of system going on - or perhaps in my area it's too hard if you can't go private to get anywhere.

Oh God not that Warnock report again. It’s patently clear there’s been a change in the skills, resilience and emotional regulation of kids. This hasn’t ’always been the case’. Warnick conducted his report when disability was more produced through a lack of vaccines, antenatal screening, lifesaving medicine etc - not ‘neurodiversity’

Because autistic people arent locked away anymore and are actually allowed to breed with each other? Considering it's genetic and all that.

Going through the fucking slog that is a pip form ATM I really want to punch heads when people say it's for the easy money though. Really winds me up.

Even if you ignore the Warnock report, the other statistics show there hasn’t been such a big increase in SEN over the last few years as some like to portray.

I'm not sure what I think re the levels. But I think the idea that we could make the education system built into deal with adhd and autism like symptoms is a good one. We could just deal with lower levels of neurodiversity as a normal human variant and save real support for those that need it.

My personal (and totally anecdotal) theory is that while there may be some increased numbers due to factors like older parents/ more premature babies surviving, the changes in our environment/ culture mean that someone with ND who would have been mostly fine, if a little quirky/ eccentric, thirty/ fifty/ two hundred years ago, struggles more now. Everything is louder, busier, more distracting, school is more pressured, and it creates more issues than in the past, leading to more requests for diagnosis and support.

My DD is eleven, and is just starting the process of assessment after struggling more at school/ socially over the past year. She is very like I was as a child, and I the contrast between my very boring 80s childhood and her childhood seems stark. Everything is so much ‘more’ now, even though we live a dull life compared to many people nowadays - no constant activities and days out. This has made me wonder if part of the ‘over-diagnosis’ is simply a response to modern life that we didn’t see in the past.

The enviroment probably. For example noise levels have risen over decades considerably. There is very little escape, noise is a major stressor.
Apparently during lockdown world noise dropped 50%. That's why some found it oddly calming yet obviously stressful due to the pandemic.
Nutrition.
Air pollution

We would need to repair the world for people to be able to function easier

Most schools do t even have an afternoon break past ks2 now then end up having to send restless kids on movement breaks.

I do wonder about this as a lot of time has been taken away from breaks in last few decades.

I used to find it surprising though number of parents with young kids who take them from in from on the TV to car journey to complaining they could not sit still - think usual answer now is to give them a screen. My kids at same age as we didn't drive would often have had a long walk - or walk and playground as know they has sit still for a bit - and distractions were often book or magazine.

But you can mitigate this at home surely?

My kids aren’t diagnosed with anything but I’ve been conscious of this since day 1. I think all kids get disregulated if constantly stimulated in high activity environments. I’ve been quite strict with screen time, no tablets, a lot of old fashioned play. We live semi rurally and don’t really go to places like busy shopping centres. Lots of outdoor play at the weekends but we take the pace of life pretty slow. Big focus on sleep and eating proper food. My 7 year old has never had a fizzy drink or sweets just as a snack, for example.

But I feel like a lot of parents disregulate their kids with high excitement activities then presume they are autistic when it overwhelms them. Plus all the sugary crap and beige food which the kids gets attached to so ‘sensory diet’